


Fear is the Heart of a Four Letter Word

by Liquid_Lyrium



Series: Advent [6]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge (Good Omens), 31 Days of Ineffables Advent Calendar Challenge 2019 (Good Omens), Angst, Crowley in Denial (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Other, Pining, Podfic Available, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22412005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: There is a monster that lives in his chest.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Advent [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561270
Comments: 13
Kudos: 59





	Fear is the Heart of a Four Letter Word

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Furcht ist das Herz eines Wortes mit sechs Buchstaben](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23333056) by [under_a_linden_tree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/under_a_linden_tree/pseuds/under_a_linden_tree)



> For the prompt of ~~love~~.

There is a monster that lives in his chest.

It moved in when he wasn't looking.

He's learned how to keep it quiet. Placate it. Wrestle it down. He fears someday the chains will break. That it will somehow grow too big for the cage of his ribs. Grow strong on the scraps and occasional steak it gets thrown.

There is a monster hiding in his chest. Crowley doesn’t know the shape of it. He knows that it is cruel, that it could tear him to pieces easier than the gravity wells and stellar hearts he used to play with. He doesn't know what it is, refuses to look at it in the light.

Only the dark. Always the dark.

The monster has a name made up of four letters. Four blank spaces. Two by two. Squared. To the second power.

In the dark Crowley can fool himself into thinking it's lust. Squeeze around a curving claw. Delve into a wet maw. Taste it on his fingers. Call the lightning that travels through the bloodstream lust, and ignore the fact that the name doesn’t fit the monster. Ignore the fact he’s perfectly aware of what _lust_ looks like. Ignore the fact that he doesn’t know the monster’s face.

Nothing that satisfies lust satisfies the thing in his chest. It hungers for more. For everything.

Sometimes he names it want. He’s a demon, after all. And why shouldn’t he want more, want everything? Only that’s just the problem, isn’t it? _Everything._ Everything is a terrifying concept. There’s a lot that goes into _everything_. It looks like inventing third alternative rendezvous spots. Playing the world's longest game of cloak and dagger, with _everything_ on the line. It looks like haunting a bookshop, even though he does not read. Pass along a bag of books and say it's nothing, even though it's everything. Sometimes _everything_ looks like offering lifts to angels who hate the way he drives. Drive fast enough, maybe he might outrun this unknown thing anchored to his ribs. Sometimes it looks like going to lunch. Feeding the beast beneath his breast, giving into its demands with whatever can be carved out of stolen time and calling it _enough_. Only it isn’t.

There isn’t enough _everything_ to satisfy the thing in his chest. He has a fair measure of Creation, and Crowley is certain the four-letter creature in his chest could devour the whole universe and still be left wanting.

Sometimes he calls it fire when it blazes beneath his skin. Blisters the charred remains of his soul. When it calls for more fuel than he can give. Fills up his lungs with something choking like smoke. Warns him when he gets too close. He burned once, he'll burn again.

When it is too quiet, sometimes he thinks it’s fear. The caverns it has carved over the long centuries gives it endless places to hide. To stalk him. Can the face of fear ever be known? Is it not the unknown that makes a thing fearful? No, Crowley fears the monster. The monster doesn’t fear him. It is not fear, though sometimes it threatens to suck the marrow out of him. Eat him and start with his internal organs. Devour his heart and drag him into the abyss within himself. Turn the demon inside out and spit out his bones.

Sometimes, he thinks it might be hope. On dark, drunk nights when he reaches out and he can convince himself the creature has the softest, roundest cheeks he’s ever seen. He has to close his eyes, keep himself blind, on nights like those. Because when the monster thinks that it is hope, it starts to glow. Threatens to make itself known. To show itself. To reveal its true face, its true name.

He is not ready for that yet.

He will never be ready for it.

He will not let the monster have his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this almost but doesn't quite fit into the _Sympathetic Magic_ collection. It is... adjacent to it, perhaps. Title is an altered reference/quote from Death Cab for Cutie's _I Will Follow You Into the Dark_. Thank you to Nalia for giving this a quick once-over for me!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Fear is the Heart of a Four Letter Word](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406427) by [Liquid_Lyrium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium)
  * [[Podfic] Furcht ist das Herz eines Wortes mit sechs Buchstaben](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23406748) by [Liquid_Lyrium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium)




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